Marton’s reply was instant.
“Put your hands right up over your head and come out of that bluff. Your hands up first.”
He was obeyed without demur, and the farmer beheld the steel handcuffs that were set about lacerated wrists.
“Now come right out.”
The farmer’s tone had changed ever so slightly. Maybe the sight of the lacerated wrists had excited his pity. Perhaps there was relief that the man was defenceless. At any rate, the tone had less sharpness and more humanity in it.
They stood face to face, and within two yards of each other. The stranger was the taller. He was clad in the black sheepskin coat of the police. His fur cap was pressed low down over his fairish face. There was a stubble of beard and whisker disfiguring the lower part of his face; and, on his cheekbones, and on the end of his nose, were great blisters of frost-bite. But it was the man’s hungry eyes that held the well-fed farmer.
“What’s your name?” he demanded.
“James Pryse.”
“What are those irons doing there?”